Bullying 'is in the genes'

LONDON: It's a study which has found an answer to one of the most intractable squabbles in family life, argumentative and disruptive children are born, not made.

A team of international researchers has carried out a study and found a strong genetic influence on whether a child becomes a bully or a victim of bullying, 'The Guardian' reported on Thursday.

In fact, according to the researchers, genetic influences explain 73 per cent of kids' risk of being a victim and 61 per cent of their chance of being a bully.

"It's in line with a large body of research which shows that psychological traits have quite a high degree of genetic influence. What this says to us is that there are factors within the child which evoke being victims or cause them to be bullies," lead researcher Harriet Ball said.

According to Ball of the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College in London, the findings do not imply that genetics should be used to blame a child for being involved in bullying. "The information should help schools and parents find new ways to deal with bullying."

In fact, Ball and his fellow researchers at the Duke University in the United States came to the conclusion after analysing 1,000 pairs of twins.

In their study sample, 12 per cent of the children had been bullied, 13 per cent frequently bullied others and nearly 2.5 per cent were both severely victimised as well as frequently bullied.

"Previous interventions for bullying have mainly focused on the bully and how we can change their behaviour whereas what we know from this research is that there's quite a big impact on things inside the victim, which make him or her become more likely to be a victim," Ball said.